Volhynia

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It has been suggested that this article be merged with Lodomeria. (Discuss) Proposed since March 2013.
"Wołyń" redirects here. For the Polish village, see Wołyń, Łódź Voivodeship.
Volhynia
Coat of Arms
Location: West Ukraine, East Poland, Southwest Belarus
Volhynia
Lubart's Castle was the seat of the medieval princes of Volhynia.

Volhynia, Volynia, or Volyn (Ukrainian: Волинь Volyn', Russian: Волы́нь Volyn', Polish: Wołyń, Lithuanian: Voluinė or Volynė,Czech: Volyň German: Wolhynien or Wolynien, Yiddish: Volin װאָלין) was a historic region in Eastern Europe straddling Poland and Ukraine. Geographically it is located at the Eastern European Plain between the rivers Prypiat and Southern Bug, to the north of Galicia and Podolia.

The region is named for the former city of Volyn or Velyn, said to have been located on the Southern Bug River, whose name may come from the Proto-Slavic root *vol/vel- 'wet.'[1] The alternate name for the region is Lodomeria after the city of Volodymer that once was a political capital of Volhynia. Territories of historical Volhynia now form the Volyn, Rivne, and parts of Zhytomyr, Ternopil and Khmelnytskyi Oblasts of Ukraine, as well as parts of Poland (see Chełm). Major cities include Lutsk, Rovno/Rivne, Kovel, Kremenets (Ternopil Oblast), Volodymyr-Volynskyi, and Starokostiantyniv (Khmelnytskyi Oblast). Many Jewish shtetls (villages) like Trochenbrod and Lozisht were once an integral part of the region.[2]

Along with a local Slavic population, the region is known for its Jewish heritage.

Contents

History[edit]

The ancient city of Halych first appears in history in 981 when taken over by Vladimir the Great of the Kievan Rus. Volhynia's early history coincides with that of the duchies or principalities of Halych and Volhynia. These two successor states of the Kievan Rus formed Halych-Volhynia between the 12th and the 14th centuries.

Pochayiv Lavra, the spiritual heart of the Orthodox in Volhynia.

After the disintegration of the Grand Duchy of Halych-Volhynia (also called Galich-Vladimir Rus) circa 1340, the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania divided up the region between them, Poland taking Western Volhynia and Lithuania Eastern Volhynia (1352–1366). After 1569 Volhynia formed a province of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. During this period Poles and Jews settled in the area. The Roman and Greek Catholic churches became established in the province, and many Orthodox churches joined the later, so as to benefit from a more attractive legal status. Records of the first agricultural colonies of Mennonites date from 1783.

After the Third partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795 Volhynia became the Volhynian Governorate of the Russian Empire and covered an area of 71,852.7 square kilometers. This annexation changed greatly the religious make-up of the area, as the Greek Catholic was forcibly liquidated by the Russian government, the ownership of all of its building being transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church. Many Roman Catholic church buildings were also given to the Russian Church, and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Lutsk was suppressed on orders of Empress Catherine II.

In the year of 1897 its population amounted to 2,989,482 persons (41.7 per square kilometer) and consisted of 73.7 percent East Slavs (predominantly Ukrainians), 13.2 percent Jews, 6.2 percent Poles, and 5.7 percent Germans.[3] Most of the German settlers had immigrated from Congress Poland. A small number of Czech settlers also had arrived. Although economically the area was developing rather quickly, upon the eve of the First World War, it was still the most rural province in Western Russia.

Mezhyrich Abbey in Ostroh was endowed by the Ostrogski princes in the 15th century.

In 1921, after the end of the Polish-Soviet war, the treaty known as the Peace of Riga divided Volhynia between Poland and the Soviet Union. Poland took the larger part and established a Volhynian Voivodeship. Most of eastern Volhynia became part of the Zhytomyr Oblast.

From 1935 to 1938 Joseph Stalin had the Poles of Eastern Volhynia deported in what became the first ethnic deportation in the Soviet history.

Following the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939 and the subsequent invasion and division of Polish territories between the Reich and the USSR, Volhynia was occupied by the Soviet Union. In the course of the Nazi-Soviet population transfers which followed this German-Soviet reconciliation, most of the German minority population of Volhynia were transferred to Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany. During the war, the Ukrainians exterminated a large part of the local Polish population (see Massacre of Poles in Volhynia). Ethnic Germans in these areas were expelled from these areas from 1945.

Volhynia was annexed to Soviet Ukraine after the end of World War II. Most of the remaining ethnic Polish population were expelled to Poland in 1945 (see Recovered Territories). Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Volhynia has been an integral part of Ukraine.

Notable residents[edit]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ E.M. Pospelov, Geograficheskie nazvaniya mira (Moscow, 1998), p. 104.
  2. ^ Michael Jones (2000). The New Cambridge Medieval History. Cambridge University Press. p. 770. ISBN 0-521-36290-3. 
  3. ^ Meyers Konversations-Lexikon. 6th edition, Vol. 20, Leipzig and Vienna 1909, pp. 744-745.

Literature[edit]

External links[edit]

Look up Volyn in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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